FRIAS-Projekt

Connectivity Map - A transcriptional approach for drug repurposing and its application to kidney disease and the ageing kidney

A central aim of this proposal is to identify FDA-approved molecules that can attenuate the degeneration of tissues associated with kidney diseases. The scope of our work focuses not only on the differing cells types that affect renal function in kidney diseases but also those associated with this pathology especially the skeletal muscle. This holistic approach allows us to examine and eventually treat the entire pathological landscape involved in kidney disease.

The work packages envisaged for this programme all map strategically on to the goals of the FRIAS Research Focus plan for the academic year 2015/16. We aim to isolate by FACS individual cell type from young and aged kidney as well as individual cells types from diseased (Diabetic model) and health kidney and generate C-Map for each population. Thereafter feed into the bio-informative pipeline to identify putative FDA approved compounds capable to alleviating the age and disease related changes in kidney cells. In addition, we will determine the mechanism of skeletal muscle loss, especially the role of autophagy in a model of acute kidney disease and the benefits to whole animal function of strategies that maintain muscle mass through antagonism of myostatin based signaling. Furthermore, use these experiments to feed into the C-Map pipeline to identify compounds capable to preventing acute kidney induced muscle atrophy.